As Live Production: Indipendant Stores Research

As Live Production: Indipendant Stores Research

As part of my ongoing research I was assigned to look in to indipendant stores that could be useful for filming VT. Bellow is a table of all the indipendant stores I contacted about filming, and I also did some basic research in to what kind of styles they offer.

When researching I looked accross a variety of areas, but tried to make sure that they were easy enough to get to for at least two mwmbers of our production team. 

I also had to make sure that they wearn't too pricey, as we want to give our audience relaistic examples of what they might like to buy. Also if we wanted to buy anything from teh stores it would have an impact on our budget. 

Update- Altgough this section has unfortunatley been removed from our show, however it was still valuble research and helped inform us of the viability and availability of indipendant stores. We can use some of these examples when talking to our audience/guests in the live show. 

I will now focus my research on my new idea of Etsy Sellers.

As Live Production: Set Design

As Live Production: Set Design

Collaborating with "creatives" is an important skill to develop in this unit.

It is important to brief your creatives on your idea/vission and keep in regular contact to receive updates on theor progress etc.

Some of the "creatives" you might be collaborating with include:

-Set Designers

-Costume Designers

-Props Sorcers

-Graphics Designers

-Music Producers/Sourcers

-Promos 

In order for collaborations to be a success you need to develop a good working relationship.

Establish deadlines early on; monitor and review theor progress; give them the space to come up with their own ideas etc. 

MAke sure to have an initial chat/in-person meeting with your collaborators. And when it comes to talant, hold auditions and look at show reels.

When designing the set it is important to consider what we want and what we need. 

You need to think about size, height, practicality etc.

Also cinsider weather we want the set to look real/realistic or if we intentially want it to look artificial. 

Start early, pick a colour palet/scheme, think about logos and barnding etc. This gives set design teams as well as promos a clear vission early on of how everything will fit together. 

Have a floor and lighting plan ready to show, and be prepared to adapt it to fit budget, scale, time etc.

You should rehurse everything to make sure your contenet will:

-Sustain

-Fit in the time slot allocated

-Work in the studio and on camera

Visuals are not just limited to the set and the lighting. Props costume and makeup all need to be carefully cosidered. 

 

 

As Live Production:Finding/Organising Talent And Contributors

As Live Production:Finding/Organising Talent And Contributors

Research is important to do no matter your role, so that you have an understanding of the context of the show and an understanding of your role. 

Typically you will need to find people to fill the following roles:

-Presenter/Actor

-Contributors

-Audience 

-Artists/Guests

What do we look for in our "talant"?

-Relevent skills/experience

-Performance

-Charisma/engaging character etc.

-"look" is appropriate to brand/style

-Representation + Relevance to audience

Finding Talent 

Sources could enclude: Own Contacts, UCA, Press, Online sources e.g. vloggers/bloggers.

Advertisements could be sent out on Mandy.com, Facebook etc.

Some Talant's have their own agents that we could contact.

Scouting (visit the talent in their respective venues, which can be just about anywhere). 

Scheduals, fees, travel/food costs and hours will all have to be negotiated. 

Get people to commit on paper, organise artist release forms, contracts and written agreements. 

Finding Audiences

You need to decide what purpose your audience serves e.g. Passive VS Active.

To find an audience you can put out advertisements, online e.g. social media.

Piggyback on university media.

Put out ads in local papers or notices in the local area.

Invite contributors to watch the show.

Accuracy

Keep good records throughout the production.

Keep important documents safe, back them up in a shared cloud space.

Ensure titles, names etc are all spelled correctly and all paperwork is filled out properly.

 

As Live Production: Initial Job Research

As Live Production: Initial Job Research

In order to make sure I am well informed and prepared for the job's I have applied for on this production I have undergone some initial research into the roles I will be taking on.

Floor Manager

For this production, my primary role is as a floor manager. 

BBC Academy defines a floor manager's role in the following way "As floor manager, You listen to the producer and director to make sure everything on the floor is going to plan".(Sharpe, 2016)

Prospects.ac.uk goes on to say that a floor manager “acts as the link between the director and the many people involved in a production on the studio floor”. (Ltd, 2018)

As a floor manager for this production, I realise that I will be responsible for ensuring all floor staff e.g. cameras, sound, lighting etc. are following the plans laid out by the directors and producers. If there is a change in the plan then I have to communicate this to the floor and get them to act accordingly.

My role also extends to the talent and contributors. I need to make sure that at all times the talent knows whats going on. They need to be aware of the running order, which cameras they are talking to and how they should be positioned. 

Along with the gallery PA's as floor manager, I am responsible for making sure the show runs to time. If we need to extend or speed up a section, I need to communicate that to both talent and crew.

It is important that both crew and guests/audience are briefed on what they are required to do, when, and know what to do in the event of an emergency or a sudden change in scheduling. 

Hand Signals- While researching the role of floor manager I became aware that there are certain hand signals that you need to be aware of. This is so you can communicate effectively with crew and talent without the need to shout (which could potentially be picked up on a recording, or over complicate things).

I researched and watched several youtube videos in order to learn these hand signals before applying for the role, so that I could demonstrate my knowledge in an interview. 






Below are links to the ones I found to be the most useful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbYT98IvrM0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vts210QiT5Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTqiuIfhvJ8

Hand Signals have a variety of uses. They can be used to communicate lengths of time (as seen above), for example, if there are only 30 seconds left of a VT or until we go live on air, then you would inform all crew and talent through a designated hand signal.

They can also be used to show talant which camera they should be facing/which camera is live.

They can be used to command changes in positioning, for example, if they want two people to move closer together, there is a specific gesture for this. 

They are great for when there is a change in the situation/scheduling. For example, if the director says that we are running out of time and need to speed up, you would use a gesture to communicate this to the talent. 

A floor manager has many more responsibilities which I look forward to exploring in this production.

Researcher
My secondary role for this production is as a VT researcher. 

Creative Skillset.com describes a researchers job in the following way “TV Researchers originate or develop programme ideas, drawing on their knowledge and understanding of industry requirements, and present their findings to decision makers”. (Skillset, 2018)

As a researcher for this project, I am responsible for helping to generate and source ideas for the shows VT's. 

As a researcher I am not just an ideas generator, I am also responsible for ensuring that the information that I and others provide, is factually accurate. This is so that we can avoid stipulation and mistakes when this information is scripted and or read on air. 

Although we have a designated casting director for this project, a researcher will work with them to source possible contributors for the show. 

For this role, I also looked online for tips on how to be a good researcher Bellow is a link to a video I found particularly useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=12&v=ZmzO5JfHN94




From my initial research, I have concluded that to be a good researcher I should have the following key skills. 

• have excellent verbal and written communication skills
• pay precise attention to detail
• be able to conceptualise ideas and think visually
• show initiative and possess strong problem-solving skills
• Have good subject knowledge in order to communicate ideas effectively with a team.

I have been initially assigned to research independent stores and online sellers like. I will compile information on each and compare them. I will also prepare a list of sources that could potentially be used for interviews/contributors. 

Bibliography
Ltd, G. P., 2018. Job profile Television Floor Manager. [Online]
Available at: https://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/television-floor-manager
[Accessed 25 January 2018].

Sharpe, E., 2016. Guide to a TV studio. [Online]
Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/articles/art20130702112135564
[Accessed 25 January 2018].

Skillset, C., 2018. Researcher (TV). [Online]
Available at: http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/308_researcher_tv
[Accessed 25 January 2018].

As Live Production: Pitch Presentation and Feedback

As Live Production: Pitch Presentation and Feedback

Today we presented our full Pitch to the pannel. And overall although we didn't have the winning pitch I think the presentation went well. 

Bellow is a link to our full Pitch Presentation.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/19BPTIiW2G5ETXDVFwljmoiTpDyjGH6az7pSafWmfThw/edit?usp=sharing

Danny and i spent teh entire morning rehearsing our presentation. We had split the presentation so that each of us had equal amounts to say, and we timed each run through until we got it within the time limit. 

To make sure we got all our points accross, I had our presnetation notes loaded on to an Ipad that i could hold, and I printed off the most important slides so that the board could flick through them if we missed anything, or wanted to  refer back to something. 

So we certainly went in to the room well prepared and confident.

I'd say that we delivered our pitch confidently and just as we rehearsed. 

The statistics in my opinion really helped to justify our idea and get our point accross. We made it clear early on what our aim and target audience was (and why this was so). 

I aslo beleive that our visual aids e.g. tables/graphs and virtual set, helped us to convey our ideas. Wehre possible we used persuasive language and tried to emphasise our unique selling point by explaining our insperations, and how we differ from other shows on the market. 

I think our biggest challange was making all the points we wanted to within our allocated time slot. Although in our rehursal we were able to get under our time limit, it was quite tight.

In the room we had to rush throgh our last few slides in order to finish our presenation on time, but we managed to end on a strong point by directing a few of our points to the pannel in order to answer questions they had raised in our 1 to 1's.

Feedback

After we had finished our presenation the pannel gave their feedback and raised a few questions. Here is what was said.

• Our pitch was very detailed and gave accross plenty of key inforamtion, with good justification. 
• Our pitch was very well thought out and we had answers for almost every question most people would ask.
• Our access to cintributors was good and impressive.
• Our running order made good space for audience interaction and VT which was a god thing.
• Our use of notes to refer to was good, but perhaps a little unneccasarry. 
• Their biggest concern was keeping the atention of our target audience. They were concerned that we would need to make sure our contributors were able to hold a conversation and be knoweldgable about the topics we discuss. We argued that them being the same age as the target audience would help, but they were still concerned that if tehy took questions from the audience they would not know how to give a good answer unless questions were prepared beofre teh show (which would be dificult).
• They aslo expressed concern that our statistics showed a lack of youth participation in polaitcs, so hw would we get them to watch the show. We explained that this was the very aim of the show, to get young people informed and interested in polatics in a laid back fashion so that they would be able to get more interested in the show, the longer they watched. But in hindsight we could have handled that question better.

Upon Reflection- Over all I think our presentation was a very strong one. I think the main thing we could have done would have been to think more carefully about what questions might be asked and prepare in advance.

I also think that our desire for secrecy could have been a slight weakness, since if we had presented our idea to others, they may have been able to identify flaws in our idea that we missed, giving us time to address them. 

As Live Production: SWOT Analysis

As Live Production: SWOT Analysis

Before we pitch our idea to the panel I thought it would be a good idea to do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, Threats) analysis. 

Teen Talk TV

Strengths

Teen Talk TV has many strengths that I hope will put it ahead of other pitches.

Firstly it is well thought out, and we have a large abundance of slides that feature information about our set design, floor plan, and target audience so that we can convey a clear and detailed impression of our idea.

Secondly, our idea is well supported by stats and study's that demonstrate why we have chosen our specific target audience and channel. 

We also have relatively good access to contributors since I there are youth councils/parliament representatives in every county and I have already contacted some of them. 

Our idea its self is relatively unique as it targets a gap in the market, and is something we haven't done before. but it also has clear inspirations that we can work from. 

Weaknesses

It is important to recognize the weaknesses in our idea so that we can work/act upon them to improve our show.

One of the main weaknesses with our pitch at the moment is our VT. We have planned out all our VT's but some of them require either access to political figures, or archive footage, both of which could be hard to get access to.

However, we've prepared alternative ideas if access difficult. 

Another potential weakness would be getting successful audience interaction. We have sections of our show where we open up a topic, or refer our guests to the audience. At which point the audience has a chance to ask their question/give their opinions. But we can't prepare for what they might (or might not say) which could cause issues (but I think that is a problem all groups may face).

Opportunities

This show presents a variety of great opportunities, to our guests, our audience, and our viewers.

This show gives young people the chance to have a voice, and give their thoughts on issues that matter to them.

It also serves to educate our viewers about the political world they live in, but in a more laid-back manner that appeals to them.

Our show also grants multiple opportunities for audience interaction, we can get our studio audience to be more involved and engaged in the show, making for a more energetic piece and there are even chances to utilize social media.

Our show has these great oppertunities because it targets a gap in the market (as I mentioned earlier). From my research, I noted that there is a lack of voters aged 18-25, and a lack of TV Viewers aged 16-25 (since they have moved to online media). Our show targets and chases down this demographic (as BBC3 is now exclusively an online platform). This gives us a unique stand out feature, and a reasonably wide target audience.

Threats

The only real threat I can see to our program is being able to keep the attention of our target audience. 15-25 year olds don't have the greatest attention span, and since we are tackling a reasonably detailed and heavy topic, we could run the risk of losing our audience's attention. 

But I think we can overcome this, so long as we have an energetic and charismatic presenter that our audience can connect with, and we make sure our guests are of a similar age so that they can make an engaging contribution as well. 

As Live Production: Pitch Development 22/1/18

As Live Production: Pitch Development 22/1/18

Today Danny and I met at the studios to finalize the details of our pitch. The main thing I wanted to focus on was the look and branding of our show. I had prepared a set design for the show which i will get in to shortly, but I also know it was important to have at least some level of branding. In order to achieve this i had prepared a number of logos which I was keen to get Danny's opinion on.

Above are the two initial designs I had prepared. I chose deliberately contrasting colors so that our logo would be eye catching, and according to business insider “Red is the color of power, yellow is also a powerful colour. They get people’s attention and it holds it”. (insider, 2013)

Danny liked the idea but suggested that it didn't quite match our branding. He showed me some example logos of shows that target a similar demographic to ours and pointed out that they were less linear. As such I designed a new logo with a more creative design, and with Danny's help I removed the stripes and replaced the text colour with one that was more appropriate to the set design and branding I had prepared. The final design can be seen here.

As I mentioned earlier in order to make our pitch stand out from others I had prepared a full set design in some software I learned to use in the TV News unit. Bellow are a few images of my design.

I used the rough floor plan, that Danny had drawn up early on in the project, as the basis for this set. I colours like yellow and orange (for reasons I explained earlier). I wanted to give the set a bit of life and a more realistic feel than I had seen in other students work, so that it would stand out (while still being realistically achievable with our budget).

We had a chair for the presenter and a sofa for the guests. With a table in  the middle and a TV that could be used for watching VT. The other props are mainly there to fill out the set and make it feel more real. This two angel set up and three wall/sectioned set would allow for effective freedom of camera movement. We could have two cameras at different angles for close ups and a taller camera to provide a wide shot (as you can see on the floor plan bellow).

E-Draw describes one advantage of a floor plan in the following way “Floor plan turns your ideas into visuals, so that you will be clear on what needs to be done and how it will come out in the end”. (E-Draw, 2018)

My Floor Plan (As seen above) provides a 5 camera set up which is visualized in my set design. With a 5 camera set up we could cover a variety if angles and still have room for a graphics feed. The Dolly camera would be designed to pan as the presenter introduces and closes the show, helping create movement both physically and in the pacing of the show. The crane could be used as filler to generate unique angles that might excite audiences (as seen on shows like "Miranda does Christmas" and "This Time Next Year"). It could also be swiveled around to focus on audiences when we take questions from the studio floor. I planned it so we could fit as many people in as possible while allowing for a safe zone around the edge for cables and emergency exits etc.

According to the BBC Academy “Understanding how lighting can change the look and feel of a production is important whether filming in studio or on location”. (Academy, 2016) Which is why I also prepared a basic lighting plan for our shows pitch. It features 2 key lights for presenter/guests. 3 Fill/back lights for the set, and 2 flood lights to see the audience. 

There are a few other slides we made to give as much additional detail as possible (they can be viewed on the link that I will post tomorrow), but the main thing is i think we are incredibly well prepared for our pitch. We have a detailed running order with 2 clear halves, a clear audience, brand, channel etc. We have a detailed set and floor plan and are prepared to answer any questions. We have made adjustments and developments along the way and are backed up by statistics that support our USP.

Bibliography

Academy, B., 2016. Lighting. [Online]
Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/production/television/lighting
[Accessed 22 January 2017].

E-Draw, 2018. Top 10 benefits to Use Floor Plan. [Online]
Available at: https://www.edrawsoft.com/floorplan-benefits.php
[Accessed 15 January 2018].

insider, B., 2013. 10 Colors That Increase Sales, and Why. [Online]
Available at: https://www.business2community.com/marketing/10-colors-that-increase-sales-and-why-0366997
[Accessed 15 January 2018].

As Live Production: Pitch Development 19/1/18

As Live Production: Pitch Development 19/1/18

Today I continued to develop our pitch further adding more slides to our presentation and preparing important plans for how our show will be broken down.

The first thing I did was decide on our VT's, I couldn't come up with all the ideas myself but Danny wasn't in today to help, fortunately I was able to message him to get his opinions. 

"The term VT is used to refer to all video, whether it's on tape or digital".(BBC, 2008)

For our brief we were required to have 4 VT's not including opening and closing credits. They had to be between 1 and 2 minuets in length so we had to allow for this when planning our schedule/running order. Using some basic maths i was able to plan out an initial running order for our proposed show that gave details about how long each section and VT would last, as well as giving a brief description of each. This can be seen bellow. 

Ideally we would have a VT to introduce each of our guests and some of the work they have done for their respective youth councils or districts.

We would have a VT to represent the 2 major parties right now (Conservative and Labour), in which we aim to speak to a small local representative from each of the parties hearing about why young people should be interested in their work/policies. 

For our final VT we provided two options. Danny suggested that we should try and obtain some celebrity opinions on politics or relative topics so that our target audience could have a recognizable figure who could gain their attention and inform them.

However we have some concerns about how easy this archive footage will be to obtain, so our backup idea is to have a VT with an external presenter running through some current affairs/events that affect our young audience Business insider explains that in order to maintain attention spans and inform a young audience you need to "communicate the gist of your message quickly".(Insider, 2014) So our VS would have to be fast paced and energetic to maintain attention and serve as a replacement or our quick fire round.

With Danny's help I also made sure our show had to clear halves as the brief asked for. The first half specifically focused on politics, we would hope to inform our audience and chat to our guests to get their thoughts on the topic, find out what they know and what they would like to know. There would be space for some audience interaction before a short break.

In the second half we would become more generalized, discussing current affairs with our guests and to ensure we kept audience attention we would have an entire segment dedicated to taking questions from our studio audience. Bellow is our initial running order that Danny and I have agreed on and think works well.

On Screen Stuff	Timing
Opening Sequence	1 Min
Introduction + 1 VT	3 Min
ROUND 1 + 2 VTs	10 Min
INTERMISSION	INTERMISSION
Introduction + VT	2 Min
ROUND 2	7 Min
Open Mic	5 Min
Closing Thoughts And Credits	2 Min

 

Section	Description
Opening	Opening theme/credits play
INTRO	Presenter walks onto the set, introduces himself and the show then presents the VT guest introduction
VT no1	Guest introducing themselves to the audience via VT
SEGMENT 1	Get to know your politics. In this segment we will be talking to our guests to establish their base knowledge on politics, as well as gauging their reactions to a the views of the 2 leading political parties.
VT no2	VT explaining the views of the Conservative party (read by either a presenter or a party representative).
VT no3	VT explaining the views of the Labour party (read by either a presenter or a party representative)
End of pt 1	Presenter leads show to a break
INTRO 2	Presenter intros next segment and next vt
VT no4	A collection of celebrity political views (e.g Russell Brand) A montage of current affairs news clips
ROUND 2	The presenter and guest talk about current affairs with occasional input from the audience
OPEN MIC	The audience ask burning questions to the presenter and guests
CLOSING	Presenter concludes the show.

Bibliography

BBC, 2008. Glossary of common media terms. [Online]
Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/school_report/4791411.stm
[Accessed 15 January 2017].

Insider, B., 2014. 7 excellent ways to start a presentation and capture your audience's attention. [Online]
Available at: http://business.financialpost.com/business-insider/7-excellent-ways-to-start-a-presentation-and-capture-your-audiences-attention
[Accessed 19 January 2017].

Critical Perspectives: Disertation Proposal

Critical Perspectives: Disertation Proposal

Today we took our first steps in to preparing for our disertation. 

Formalism- The elements that make up and structure the films "form".

Cinimatography, editing, sound, narration etc. all have an effect on the audience. They help make up formalism and they all have sub catagories that aslo have an effect on the audience e.g. characterisation, frame rate etc.

Realism an social realism is another useful topic to analyse. 

Auteur theory can be a useful case study and applied to a variety of films and film directors (French New Wave can be useful to look at).

Alternativeley a different approach to film cou;ld be to use genre theory.

Phsychoanalysis- The male gaze, Laura Mulvey, charol Clover etc.

2nd Wave femanism, post femanism and consumer choice of branding.

Hypodermic needle theory, opinion leaders, audience reception theory etc.

There's loads of catagories to be explored, e.g. fashion and costume in TV; representation of gender etc; product placement in TV; political and economic representation etc.

The Shape Of Your Disertation

 

Your disertation should flow as follows.

An introduction- sets up and prepares the reader. 

Chapter 1- The Beguining 

Chapter 2- The Middle

Chapter 3- The End

Conclusion

You need a clear, focussed and research informed question, or statement of intent.